Acumen Physician Solutions Unveils Acumen 2.0, Powered by Epic

This week, we are handing over the blogger baton to Dana Hensley, President of Acumen Physician Solutions, for a special announcement!

After well over a year of strategic planning and searching for the best future technology solution for our customers, we have entered into a partnership with Epic Systems Corporation to develop Acumen 2.0, powered by Epic. This unprecedented partnership between the two largest U.S. providers of electronic health records for nephrologists will deliver next-generation EHR software and other digital solutions to practices and providers.

In a nutshell, Acumen will continue to develop nephrology-specific tools, but will do so “on the backbone” of Epic, the strongest health technology company in the United States.

Who is Epic?

Epic Systems Corporation provides the information software for a majority of the largest and most sophisticated integrated health systems in the U.S., creating a broad connected community for patient information. The Epic community includes 405 highly respected healthcare organizations that encompass 41,200 clinics, 1,950 hospitals, and over 336,000 physicians. In the United States, providers in the Epic community care for over 58% of the total patient population.

What does this mean for the Acumen EHR?

We have developed a model with Epic that is unique in the health information technology marketplace. Epic will provide the core functionality for the electronic health record and practice management system. Acumen will develop nephrology-specific tools that “sit on top of” and integrate with our customized version of the Epic platform. This approach creates a combined product that leverages the strength of both Acumen and Epic.

Some of the benefits of this upgrade are the following:

Deep interoperability and information sharing. Epic enables communication between providers on a scale that is unmatched in the marketplace. Significant numbers of hospital systems, labs, national pharmacy companies (Walgreens, CVS, etc.) all share data via the Epic network.

Keeping the focus on nephrology and the needs of the practice. Working from the “backbone” of Epic allows us to focus on our own customers and their unique needs for technology solutions.

Integration with hospital systems. While many physicians do not have access to Epic, the Epic footprint is large and growing and includes over 1,600 hospitals nationwide. Massachusetts General, Johns Hopkins, Kaiser Permanente, Duke, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, the Mayo Clinic. All these and others use Epic. This will provide Acumen 2.0 customers with improved access to important patient data to help make more informed and timely decisions.

Population health management. Managing healthcare for groups of people under risk-based models is a growing future for all healthcare providers. The Epic tools that will be provided under our Acumen 2.0 offering will be valuable in helping physicians transition into the risk-based world.

Robust patient portal. Epic’s My Chart will provide a full-featured patient portal that can be used to keep in touch with patients both from a clinical and a business perspective. It is well regarded in the marketplace and is privately labeled by many current Epic customers.

Maintaining the Acumen level of service and support. The model we will employ keeps us squarely in touch with our customers. We contract with the practice, implement the software, provide training and support, and maintain customer service for each practice, just as we do now. None of this is outsourced to Epic. Rather, Acumen will continue to deliver the high-touch direct customer contact and support that our current clients expect and rely upon.

All in all, this partnership will improve access to patient data, care coordination, and workflow efficiency for our physicians who spend their time rounding in different venues of care.

I sincerely believe that Acumen 2.0 will represent a “best in class” solution for nephrology practices, both now and into the future.

Dana Hensley, FACHE, brings more than 25 years of health systems management and health information technology experience to Acumen Physician Solutions. Prior to joining the company, he served as vice president, clinical solutions for McKesson Provider Technologies. Hensley was one of the founding managers of IntelliTx Technologies, a clinical information technology and software company affiliated with Vanderbilt University Medical Center and for many years a hospital and health system executive with the Baptist Health System, Birmingham, Alabama.